I feel like I've been slacking off in recent contests, so I'll make a concerted effort to finish this one.

This is going to be a stronghold nestled in the valley between two mountains, serving double duty as the main headquarters for a group of paladins, and as a major strongpoint in a chain of fortresses throughout the mountains guarding against invasion from the north.

### LATEST WIP ###

Diamond

04-30-2011, 07:45 PM

A little more work...

### LATEST WIP ###

eViLe_eAgLe

05-01-2011, 01:06 AM

Awwww crap.. More competition.. But! It's good work so far!! Good luck.

Ares96

05-01-2011, 05:37 AM

Awwww crap.. More competition.. But! It's good work so far!! Good luck.

This was my reaction as well.

Diamond

05-08-2011, 10:39 PM

I wasn't happy with the way things were going with my first attempt, so I started over. The first version felt too cramped to show everything I wanted to show, and the mountains were dominating it instead of the fortress.

### LATEST WIP ###

Diamond

05-09-2011, 12:40 AM

One more update tonight. This is looking much more like I'd envisaged it now.

### LATEST WIP ###

Troedel

05-09-2011, 07:45 AM

The font is great and fits the rest perfectly. Well done so far if I may say so.

Ascension

05-09-2011, 04:15 PM

Yeah, looks good, man.

timallen

05-09-2011, 08:02 PM

Very nice! What font is that?

Diamond

05-09-2011, 10:42 PM

I think it's Aquiline2, though it might just be regular Aquiline. I'll double-check in a bit; just got home from work. It's on dafont.com, though.

Diamond

05-10-2011, 01:35 AM

Yep, the font is AquilineTwo.

Here's another smallish update, with a couple more areas labeled, and some flagstones for the yards. I'm not convinced they look alright, but I'll leave 'em in for a bit and see how things progress.

### LATEST WIP ###

Ascension

05-10-2011, 08:09 AM

You know what I might try for this...open a new document the exact same size as the pattern you've used. On a new layer, hand-trace the lines between the blocks and then put a white layer underneath and save that as a pattern. On this document use the pattern with a blend of multiply. This will get rid of the texturey real feeling and keep it more linear architectural.

Diamond

05-10-2011, 08:59 PM

That was my thought as well, but then I got to thinking it looked too rectangular and evenly-shaped, so I started hand-drawing individual flagstones. I can see I'm going to have to devote a few hours just to that tonight if I want to finish in time. :D

Diamond

05-10-2011, 10:51 PM

I decided to deep-six the flagstones. They just didn't work.

Here's some more work done, including hill elevations and the southern shore of a lake (decided to make it a lakefront castle instead of in a mountain pass).

### LATEST WIP ###

Diamond

05-13-2011, 12:05 AM

I think I'm done. I tried to keep everything pretty stripped-down and clean; maybe this could be a layout drawn by a spy scouting out the fortress...

### LATEST WIP ###

Sapiento

05-13-2011, 02:24 AM

Looks very good, Diamond, like an actual old map. The only nitpick I have: the horizontal lines within the buildings are too sharp and clean compared to the rest. They look like an 1 pixel line, not like something hand drawn. Maybe small, very small, irregularities or soft use of the blur tool. Just an idea.

jtougas

05-13-2011, 01:30 PM

I think I'm done. I tried to keep everything pretty stripped-down and clean; maybe this could be a layout drawn by a spy scouting out the fortress...

Thats a great idea. To take it further I would say that it's been "cleaned up" by someone after it was drawn by your spy. Great job as always going to be a tough one this month. :)

Diamond

05-13-2011, 10:31 PM

Looks very good, Diamond, like an actual old map. The only nitpick I have: the horizontal lines within the buildings are too sharp and clean compared to the rest. They look like an 1 pixel line, not like something hand drawn. Maybe small, very small, irregularities or soft use of the blur tool. Just an idea.

Good point. I'll play with it tonight and see what I can come up with. Some of the buildings are way too sharp also.

Diamond

05-14-2011, 09:48 PM

I added a slight blur to the buildings, but didn't mess with the horizontal building lines too much apart from that. It just made things look too messy.

I also added in a bunch of 'action report' text to liven things up a little.